Sumanasiri Liyanage

Dr Pradeep Jeganathan’s dinner experience in Delhi with a French anthropologist reminded me a recent meeting I happened to have with a European high level diplomat in Sri Lanka. Referring to the recent events in Sri Lanka, he said: “I would be worried if similar things have happened in Balkans or even in India, but I am not worried at all for what is happening in Sri Lanka”. Is this a difference between an anthropologist who in Dr Jeganathan’s account was superficially worried about Sri Lanka and a diplomat who has been here for quite a long time but least worried about the Sri Lankan events? The diplomat in my story was rather angry as international …

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I remembered John Denver’s passionate song dedicated to the refugees called “Fallen leaves”, as I sat in the Chennai airport, trying to make sense of what I had seen and heard and my own feelings, recalling my visit to Sri Lankans who had fled to India in fear of their lives and live in camps as refugees. One of the lines from the song that kept coming back to me was what I had put as the title to this reflection.

At the airport, I myself felt a bit of a refugee, having come to the airport from an overnight bus. It had not been an easy journey, traveling by a night train, and spending the day at the store house …

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The current socio-economic, political and ground situation in Jaffna from a resident in the embattled region in the North of Sri Lanka as captured by Vikalpa Video.

Also see Present situation in Jaffna: A video interview in English and Sinhala.

It’s easy. You just lead them a little less. It’s an old joke, born in the Vietnam War, and first recorded by Michael Herr, though Kubrick made it famous with his portrait of the crazed US Marine door gunner in Full Metal Jacket. In layspeak, a shooter “leads” a running figure so that he’s aiming at where the target will be when the bullet reaches it. Women and children run slower than an adult male.

It’s not so funny anymore though, when we’re fighting a war in which the uniformed enemy often is a woman or a child. Earlier this week, a US military court sentenced Sgt Evan Vela, a 24-year-old Army sniper, to ten years imprisonment for killing an Iraqi …

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Well known and senior trade union leader Bala Tampoe speaks on the war in Sri Lanka and the state of governance in the South.

He notes that even militarily defeating the LTTE does not mean guerilla warfare or their terrorist attacks against civilians in the South will cease. He goes on to note that:

“…on top of that they are talking about a political settlement. [The Rajapakse regime] can never achieve a proper political settlement till and until they recognise the right of self-determination, which is a democratic right, of the Tamil people and the Muslim people in the North and East, and establish some kind of proper constitutional basis …

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Member of Parliament and Convener of the Civil Monitoring Committee, Mano Ganeshan, speaks about the rising abductions of Tamils in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

For this interview in Sinhala, click here.
For this interview in Tamil, click here.

For more videos, please visit the Vikalpa Video Channel here.

Due to the civil war that erupted in the Trincomalee District between the LTTE and the Government forces, the families that had been living at Muthur and Sam poor areas had been displaced to different locations of Trincomalee District in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka. Due to this displacement the day to day life of these families had been affected badly along with Education, Culture, and Economy etc; a representative of CHA had visited one of the IDP’s camp on 12..2.2008 and they shared some of their pathetic stories with me.

1. I was able to meet Mr. P.Shanmuganathan who is the leader of the IDP’s camp at Konesapuri in the Trincomalee Town and Gravets …

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Fashionable as any aspiring theoreticians, writer Publius with above article once again takes on a contemporary and important topic, yet with wider pseudo interpositions and an assumed role of political advisory.

Following is a very short response.

Those who know me will bear witness that I am neither an Eelamist nor a separatist. I envisage and endeavour for a normative multination democracy where the Thamil nation, legally, constitutionally and normatively will restore its nationhood with or without a state because all nations does not need to own a state (Taylor 1992,2004) ,but every nation needs to live in its fullest freedom including the right to self determination. (Connor 1990, 2002)

The core of the argument forwarded by Publius is encapsulated

‘’…A …

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“Return my husband you abducted before you ask for my vote”
(Plea to the TMVP-UPFA, from a Batticaloa women)

The government had claimed it had “liberated” the East, completed a 180 days development program and had decided to hold elections as if to prove all is well there.

Reports from the ground seemed otherwise. The Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC), comprising UN and NGOs active in humanitarian work, reported on their 11th February update that “armed groups continue to operate in the area”. In their previous report of 5th Feb. 2008, the IASC had reported that the “The situation remains tense and that the looting of humanitarian assistance materials is leading to delays in programme implementation, with some agencies informing that they have …

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By Mark Gereis

True sub-continental cricket is a freak phenomenon that hits Australia’s shores once every two or three years. I deliberately use the word ‘freak’ because I can’t explain it – in truth, I don’t think anybody is able to explain it. A certain magic permeates the atmosphere as we crowd the family television set in the company of friends and family. We hang-off each delivery that Muttiah runs into bowl; each six that Sanna sends crashing into the fans; every word uttered by our adopted uncle – Tony Greig. Watching cricket is very much a mutual experience. Half of the atmosphere is created by those waiting in eager anticipation of another of Sanga’s centuries. “Aiyoooooo…” is …

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ROHAN EDRISINHA & ASANGA WELIKALA

There has recently been speculation and media reports about the European Union’s system of tariff preferences known as the ‘GSP Plus’ programme, of which Sri Lanka is presently a beneficiary country. The tariff preferences create massive advantages in particular to our apparel industry, and have implications for the wellbeing and employment for thousands in that important sector of our economy. It is vital, therefore, that Sri Lanka retains this privilege.

The controversy relates to the fact that Sri Lanka’s continued beneficiary status comes up for renewal later in 2008, and whether Sri Lanka continues to qualify for the GSP Plus benefits in terms of the requirements that are set out for this by the European Union. One …

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9 February 2008

2008 saw the second festival at Galle, “Let’s Play with Words.” Those present the previous year remarked that it was more varied and incorporated more Sri Lankan authors, both local and expatriate. Implicit in the title, of course, is the understanding that the focus is on creative literature in English, not French, Sinhala, Tamil or pidgin. Implicit in the title, of course, is the understanding that the focus is on creative literature in English, not French, Sinhala, Tamil or pidgin. Equally implicit, is the bracketing out of social science productions in English or other languages (that “heavy stuff,” you know).

Two blokes remarked that the whole affair was “colonial.” Yes, there was a distinct whiff of the …

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Dr. Jayampathy Wickramaratne is a President’s Counsel in Sri Lanka and Senior Adviser to Sri Lanka Ministry of Constitutional Affairs & National Integration.

See more at Vikalpa Video.

13 February 2008, Colombo: Earlier this week, a leading Sri Lankan photojournalist was detained, questioned and released by police for taking photographs near a well-known Colombo school.

According to news reports, Associated Press (AP) photographer Gemunu Amarasinghe was apprehended by a group of parents who formed the school’s civil defence committee. They had handed him over to soldiers on duty near by, and he was briefly detained by the Narahenpita police.

It is not clear exactly why the experienced and credentialed photojournalist had to undergo this treatment. This might seem a minor incident in the context of highly dangerous conditions in which Sri Lankan journalists operate today. It was only a few days earlier that the World Association of Newspapers ranked …

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This year, I missed Ash Wednesday. I unconsciously avoided watching television or reading the newspapers. I didn’t call my family or friends. I felt it helped me stay slightly removed from the madness of military victories and resultant casualties or indiscriminate violence and the bitterness it left in its wake.

I was only reminded that the season of Lent had begun when I received an email from a friend on how to make self-denial more meaningful than mere fasts and prayers.

This time of the year usually brings back memories of crowded churches I attended as a child, and the people lining up to kiss the feet of the statue of the crucified Christ.

However, for the last year or so, my memories …

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In recent weeks, the public at large has been treated to the unseemly saga of the sacking, reinstatement, cancellation of visa and departure from the island of the Executive Director, International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo, Dr. Rama Mani.

What began as a internal problem of succession and transition within that organisation took on quite sensational and sordid proportions in the ways in which it was handled and in the way in which an internal problem within a premier and long standing civil society institution in this country of international repute, culminated in an alleged threat to national security associated with the concept of the Responsibility to Protect or R2P.

The internal problems of the ICES are not of concern here, except …

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I don’t oppose all wars… What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war… A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.
Speech by Sen. Barack Obama, delivered on 26 October 2002 at an anti-war rally in Chicago

I’m often asked in person and through feedback on the citizen journalism website I edit, Groundviews , whether I am against war. By this most of my interlocutors implicitly wish to ascertain whether I am opposed to the war waged by Mahinda Rajapakse’s administration against the Liberation of Tamil Tigers Eelam (LTTE). Many have their minds already made up that I am a (Sinhala Buddhist) disbeliever in …

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Excerpt:

In any conflict resolution exercise the main focus should be the pursuit of a political settlement. However, the APRC or the GoSL do not seem to have any urgency or seriousness of purpose. It has chosen to gamble on a military victory rather than meaningful power sharing as its formula for peace. The government’s only priority this year will be waging war in which one will be forced to become a patriot or a traitor following the Bush Doctrine. The LTTE itself never gave up its campaign in the pursuit of its maximalist demand of separation through violence. Both Sinhala and Tamil nationalisms in Sri Lanka and in the expatriate community suffer from the weakness of the exclusion of the …

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The rollercoaster’s
rolling full throttle,
has a new booster rocket
not subject yet

to safety experiment,
riders thrown every few
minutes, smashed
to ground, publicists

about to stop digging
hands into steaming
lampreys served
with fresh lime juice

to wonder perhaps
that this rate
of civilians hurled
to earth must not agree

quite
with amusement
park patterns
in the fabled

West
where children
go for rides
not to die.

February 5, 2008

Recently I had the privilege of spending my Sunday morning with an eminent panel of academics discussing ‘Language, as a Pathway to Peace’. The Galle Literary Festival is an excellent event and its willingness to venture into the topical and relevant, is praiseworthy. Anyone who has followed the ethnic (or is it just ‘terrorist’) conflict in Sri Lanka will understand the hugely divisive role language has played in its history. It was interesting – although not entirely satisfying from a hopeful’s perspective – to hear the role of language as a tool for peace, being discussed by a host of reputed Sri Lankan minds.

The panel consisted of Professor Neloufer De Mel, of the English Department of the University of …

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